Loren Kleinman interviewed me for The Huffington Post

Loren Kleinman interviewed me for the Huffington Post where she grilled me on everything from Civil Coping Mechanisms to the definition of Alt Lit. Here’s a snippet from the interview:

LK: How do you cope with rejection? How do you cope with resistance, meaning, how do you cope with doubt when writing?

MJS: It never gets any easier. It’s always there to fuck with your mood and maybe your day. I’m the guy that rereads a rejection 12 times, begins to cultivate some totally fictional hate-spun story about the reason for being rejected to make myself feel better. But I’ve gotten better at it lately. For the most part, I take the constant rejection in stride and figure that I’m going to keep trying no matter what so it doesn’t really matter. That’s what’s most important, I believe: Fight, retool, explore. Doubt is always there and it could easily be the death of your creative self. Don’t let it. Just keep going. Fight it by not backing down.